by Lisa Railsback
ages: 10+
First sentence: “A bright light shines on the beautiful girl.”
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Babo is a leftover child. In her unnamed war-torn country — unnamed on purpose, to give her a sense of universality, which I found both interesting and disconcerting; I wanted something more concrete as a reader — she lives with other orphaned children in an abandoned circus camp. It’s not an easy life; there’s not much food, and there’s always the danger of soldiers and bombs. And yet, she’s happy. She tells stories to the other children, she pretends that her parents will come back and get her.

And then, one day, an American couple come to the camp and want to adopt Babo. Although she tries desperately to get them to change their mind, the next thing she knows her name is Betti and she is on a plane (with her friend and fellow leftover child, George) to America. The book is mostly about her struggles to, and against, adjusting to her new life.

It’s a heartbreaking story; Babo/Betti is a fighter and a survivor, and she feels guilty about having comforts when her friends are still stuck with a lousy life. She’s been struggling her whole life, and she’s afraid about what it might do to her. In a couple of very telling scenes — it’s one of the best books I’ve read lately that shows rather than tells — you get the sense of Babo/Betti’s desperation and fear. Her adoptive parents are complex as well; on the one hand, they’re overly generous and kind of clueless Americans, but there’s a real love for lost souls, and a genuine concern for Babo/Betti’s well-being. Railsback doesn’t paint everything in black and white, though Babo/Betti tries to make things that way, and as a result, the book is a complex, and yet accessible, look at war, refugees and adoption.

(Just for the record: because this is a Cybils nominee, I’ve been asked to make sure y’all know this is my opinion only, and not that of the panel.)